Thursday, December 23, 2010

If you want to study yourself -- look into the hearts of other people. If you want to study other people -- look into your own heart.

Three passions have governed my life:The longings for love, the search for knowledge,And unbearable pity for the suffering of [humankind].

Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.In the union of love I have seenIn a mystic miniature the prefiguring visionOf the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge.I have wished to understand the hearts of [people].I have wished to know why the stars shine.

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,But always pity brought me back to earth;Cries of pain reverberated in my heartOf children in famine, of victims torturedAnd of old people left helpless.I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,And I too suffer.